Travel Tools - Site that searches for award seats for you?

I haven't seen the answer to this elsewhere so... Is there a site that will search award flights for you? (Not track FF accounts). I have some miles in a few accounts and I want to go somewhere. I am quite open to where. I just have to go during a certain time period. Why can't I just search awards based on number of miles from a specified FF program for all airports in a country? Or all airports in a region? Then click through to the award program's site to double check availability and book. I have spent hours checking every damned airport in a country X my date range, just in case there is an affordable seat available. This seems so necessary that I am amazed it doesn't exist. Of course, skyscanner is the only such similar software I have found and it doesn't actually work since it makes you drill down to a specific date and city to see the fare, defeating the point of having the ability to search by a region or by a date range. So maybe it is just too hard (this is me daring software developers to get on it. Come on google, you bought ITA, now change the frakking world already! ;)).

Will this work? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milesbuzz/1241015-how-many-miles-award.html And Welcome to FT!

look at the mr tools threads at the top of the mr discussion forum.....might get some help there.....

Thx! I've been lurking for a long time - it is great to have a community of people who know all the most important things in life :-D.

There were a couple of sites that would show available award seats across multiple carriers. I never used any as they are mostly pay sites, but I have seen 2 or 3 mentioned on FT. Doing a quick search I could only find reference to 1 right away....check it out.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travelbuzz/963178-expertflyer-com-master-information-updates-thread.html

Well, I gave expertflyer a go. All I can say is "why bother." I could spend the same amount of time searching the airline websites - and at least they communicate in # of miles to redeem an award as opposed to "fare class." I guess this kind of site along with my dream of skyscanner working as it says it does (but doesn't) is just that, a dream.

Well, I gave expertflyer a go. All I can say is "why bother." I could spend the same amount of time searching the airline websites - and at least they communicate in # of miles to redeem an award as opposed to "fare class." I guess this kind of site along with my dream of skyscanner working as it says it does (but doesn't) is just that, a dream.

One feature ExpertFlyer has, that airline websites do not, is our availability alerting service called Flight Alerts. With Flight Alerts, if a flight currently doesn't have the award/upgrade availability you want, you can set an alert and our system will keep checking and notify you if the inventory becomes available.

Well, I gave expertflyer a go. All I can say is "why bother." I could spend the same amount of time searching the airline websites - and at least they communicate in # of miles to redeem an award as opposed to "fare class." I guess this kind of site along with my dream of skyscanner working as it says it does (but doesn't) is just that, a dream.

FT is an incredibly valuable community. Most of us are happy to LEARN how to do the work and then do it. If it's all too much work, you can always pay one of the very capable services to get you tickets. You tell them what points you have and where and when you want to go and if it's possible, they take care of it.

What you are asking seems a tad unreasonable. You want to tell a program what miles you have and where you want to go and let it do the rest. Others may differ but I don't know any like that. But I've done very well with ExpertFlyer tho they don't cover every airline AwardNexus is great and will rerun searches automatically every day. But at some point, you have to do something!

A final alternative is to tell this group where you miles are, how many you have, where you want to go and when and what class of service you want. Someone will find something for you.

this might help...with in general..how much award travel from A to B...but doesn't show availability..or even all the different airlines for that matter

http://www.milez.biz/en/index.php#.TxdWeaVrPWU

If it's all too much work, you can always pay one of the very capable services to get you tickets. You tell them what points you have and where and when you want to go and if it's possible, they take care of it.


Can you recommend some of these services?

Well, I gave expertflyer a go. All I can say is "why bother." I could spend the same amount of time searching the airline websites - and at least they communicate in # of miles to redeem an award as opposed to "fare class." I guess this kind of site along with my dream of skyscanner working as it says it does (but doesn't) is just that, a dream.

While I like expertflyer a lot, but as someone else mentioned it could be that what you're looking for is another good service, awardnexus.com. The link is https://awardnexus.com/user/signup It offers a limited degree of free services for active FT members. Not sure if the alerts it sends if awards open up are free, but you can check into it.

Can you recommend some of these services?

best known:

http://bookyouraward.com/

Gary Leff is the king of these blogs and a very valuable resource. But I have never used him. If you are looking for a pair of long-haul tickets that you can't figure out how to get, his fee is a bargain.

Award availability searching websites:

ANA (all Star Alliance)
Continental (all SA minus Swiss)
Aeroplan (all SA)
British Airways (all Oneworld)
American (AA only)
Qantas (all OW)
Delta (Delta/AirFrance/KLM/Alaska)
Air France (AFKL/China Airlines)

Individual airline websites (Etihad, Hawaiian, Virgin Australia etc.)

I think you might find that www.milewise.com will give you much of what you're looking for. You enter the dates/places you want to travel, and it will give you results based on dollars and on miles/points. They support the major FF programs as well as Amex, SPG, Chase, CapOne and Citi.

I haven't looked closely to see how accurate their system is (if you can get better results going to the airlines themselves) but it looks promising.

I think you might find that www.milewise.com will give you much of what you're looking for. You enter the dates/places you want to travel, and it will give you results based on dollars and on miles/points. They support the major FF programs as well as Amex, SPG, Chase, CapOne and Citi.

I haven't looked closely to see how accurate their system is (if you can get better results going to the airlines themselves) but it looks promising.

Thank you! This is awesome and very useful!:)

http://www.milewise.com is great even with AA not allowing them to show fares and award seats available.

Thank you! This is awesome and very useful!:)

Quite welcome. Amusingly, I was talking to a friend about miles/points, and he e-mailed me a few days later saying, "Thanks for recommending milewise.com " Weird thing was, I didn't! But it's a very helpful website.

Quite welcome. Amusingly, I was talking to a friend about miles/points, and he e-mailed me a few days later saying, "Thanks for recommending milewise.com " Weird thing was, I didn't! But it's a very helpful website.


Nice program thanks for posting it!

For Star Alliance searches, you can also try http://awardfinder.juny4ng.com/

For Star Alliance searches, you can also try http://awardfinder.juny4ng.com/


Thanks . It worked for LAX to HAN for December 13th. What is "C" class?

Date Flight No. From To Depart Arrive Type F Class C Class Y Class
12/13(TH) OZ201 Los Angeles Seoul(Incheon) 13:10 18:10+1 747 N/A - N/A
12/14(FR) OZ733 Seoul(Incheon) Hanoi 19:20 21:50 767 N/A Avail Avail

It shows LAX to Seoul then Seoul to HAN ....Next to LAX to Seoul, it doesn't show Avail or class. Does it mean the 1st leg is not available?

Thanks . It worked for LAX to HAN for December 13th. What is "C" class?

Date Flight No. From To Depart Arrive Type F Class C Class Y Class
12/13(TH) OZ201 Los Angeles Seoul(Incheon) 13:10 18:10+1 747 N/A - N/A
12/14(FR) OZ733 Seoul(Incheon) Hanoi 19:20 21:50 767 N/A Avail Avail

It shows LAX to Seoul then Seoul to HAN ....Next to LAX to Seoul, it doesn't show Avail or class. Does it mean the 1st leg is not available?
C = business class

There's no availability in any class on OZ201 LAX-ICN. Because no search engine will look at all potential combinations, the experts typically recommend that you start by searching for long-haul (overwater) segments to get you to your destination region, and then tinker with in-region connections (generally more plentiful). Thus, you'd want to look at LAX-NRT, LAX-BKK, LAX-HND, LAX-SIN, etc.; once you see availability, then look for the onward routing.

It looks to me like there are multiple ways to go LAX-[NRT,HND]-ICN-HAN around the date you specified.

C = business class

There's no availability in any class on OZ201 LAX-ICN. Because no search engine will look at all potential combinations, the experts typically recommend that you start by searching for long-haul (overwater) segments to get you to your destination region, and then tinker with in-region connections (generally more plentiful). Thus, you'd want to look at LAX-NRT, LAX-BKK, LAX-HND, etc.; once you see availability, then look for the onward routing.

It looks to me like there are multiple ways to go LAX-[NRT,HND]-ICN-HAN around the date you specified.

Thanks for your help. I am also checking LAX to BKK, then BKK to HAN. What do you think would be best to check for PNH to LAX. I am using my U.S. airways miles for this. I have 190 K miles. Can I mix and match Star Alliance Partners?

Thanks for your help. I am also checking LAX to BKK, then BKK to HAN. What do you think would be best to check for PNH to LAX. I am using my U.S. airways miles for this. I have 190 K miles. Can I mix and match Star Alliance Partners?
Same advice for getting to/from PNH: worry first about finding overwater award availability, and then work from there. A good starting point for the latter effort is to determine which airlines serve your destination (here, PNH) and where they fly to; the airport's website (or even Wikipedia) will give you that info.

Re US awards, yes, you can mix partners. There's an active thread in the US forum on award redemption advice, http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/us-airways-dividend-miles/1018431-star-alliance-award-bookings-using-us-airways-miles-faq-help-thread-merged.html. Be sure to read post #1, and then a few of the most recent pages, before posting questions.

Can you recommend some of these services?

There is a pretty comprehensive list @ http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milesbuzz/1296363-award-booking-services-list.html